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The purpose of this blog is to explore and learn about the Greek language in an easy, simple way. The goal is to open the Greek language to those desiring to understand the Koine Greek of the New Testament Bible or even those who desire to learn Classical Greek. The desire of this site is to open to anyone who wants to learn Greek, and all the gems and treasures to be found in this very expressive language.

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Friday, April 30, 2010

Lesson 3 - John 1:1b The Greek Letters and Translation

Here are the Greek letters and their English letter translation.






New letters: k, i (ee like the i in police), p, t, th (th as in thin), e (short e- you met the capital version earlier- E).

Letters you already know: a, o (short), l, g, s, e(long), e(short), r, n.

Note: Greek has several two-vowel combinations that are pronounced as if they were one  vowel.  English has two vowel combinations also. "Kai" introduces us the the first one we have come across in the text. The two vowel combination is ai.  The fancy term for two letter combinations that are pronounced as one sound is diphthong (pronounced diff-thong and Greek for  "two sounds"). The diphthong "ai" is pronounced as "ai" in aisle or like the word "eye" or the English pronunciation of the letter i. So kai is pronouced ki.

The meaning of the above Greek words are:

kai = and,  o = the,  logos = word,  en = was,
pros = with,  ton = the,  theon (from theos) = God.

Translation: and the word was with the God


Pronunciation of the Greek words:     
 kai (ki),  o (ah),  lo-gos ( lah-gahs), en (ayn),
pros (prahs),  ton (tahn), the-on (theh-ahn).



Note "THE"- Spelling: Have you noticed that now we have two words that translate "the" - o and ton. Why two different spellings for the same word? We will deal with this a little later. Don't worry about it right now.


Grammer "THE" -Absence or Presence: In John 1:1a - "the" was left out of the Greek to draw attention to and intensify the meaning of the word "beginning". Here in John 1:1b we have another use of "the". The Greek "the" is there to make definite the word "God" (THE God), so we will translate it definite too. This will help you to take notice when "the" is used or not. English translations leave out "the" before God. In English we do not routinely say "the God" did this or that. We say God did this or that. Greek usually is translated the way we speak English.

For Interest: There is an English word that has two of the above words in it: theology (theos + logos). Logos at the end of words in English means "the study of". So theology is the study of God. (When you study, you study the words  written in books, so logos also became the study of words on a subject, then the study of the subject itself.)

To go to Lesson four click here.
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